Sigma 150-600 Lens Test. This looks bad to me: The photo of the test panel was taken at a measured distance of 86 feet. Camera is a D7000 and mounted on solid tripod, fired remotely.

Keldon Loc: Yukon, B.C.

The photo of the test panel was taken at a measured distance of 86 feet. Camera is a D7000 and mounted on solid tripod, fired remotely.

I'm not happy with the focus at all but since this is a new lens I'm not sure exactly how much sharper this should be.

I just received the USB dock, ran the upgrade and set the lens to default. No changes noticeable. Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

***Apparently I screwed up the original download. I'll re-post. Sorry**

Attached file:
(Download)

SonyA580 Loc: FL in the winter & MN in the summer

Definitely not in focus. Suggest you try shooting the middle numbers on a yardstick placed at 45 degrees, with lens wide open, using manual focus. If the numbers in front of, or behind, the middle ones appear out of focus, you have a bad lens - send it back.

Keldon Loc: Yukon, B.C.

Thanks, I'll give that a try and see what happens.

SonyA580 wrote:

Definitely not in focus. Suggest you try shooting the middle numbers on a yardstick placed at 45 degrees, with lens wide open, using manual focus. If the numbers in front of, or behind, the middle ones appear out of focus, you have a bad lens - send it back.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Keldon wrote:

The photo of the test panel was taken at a measure... (show quote)

Why are you trying to post a Tiff file? Obviously it has been process from the original image as the D7000 does not shoot in Tiff. If you upload the untouched JPG and click the "save original" box, then the Exif data can be read and interpreted.

10MPlayer Loc: California

MT Shooter wrote:

Why are you trying to post a Tiff file? Obviously it has been process from the original image as the D7000 does not shoot in Tiff. If you upload the untouched JPG and click the "save original" box, then the Exif data can be read and interpreted.

tiffs have all the data. jpegs are compressed and only have a portion of the data. better to post a tiff when comparing image quality.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

10MPlayer wrote:

tiffs have all the data. jpegs are compressed and only have a portion of the data. better to post a tiff when comparing image quality.

Tiffs have been processed, there is no way to tell to what extent. Any proper evaluation of camera or lens problems can only be diagnosed from unprocessed images as they came from the camera. If the camera shoots in Tiff format, no problems, but the OP's camera does not. JPG images from Nikon cameras retain 100% of the EXIF data, all you need is a proper EXIF reader.

SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia

I've had mine for some years now and despite what others say about how bad it is at 500mm, I don't have any more problems with it than I do with any of my other lenses. Pretty well all digital pics will require some editing. I usually give my pics a few degrees of sharpen. Most of the reviewers don't even own one of these lenses yet thrust their, quite often uneducated, opinions on others which stops them from buying what is in actual fact, an excellent long lens for the money...of course, if you have the odd $10,000 then buy something else.
Here are three pics I took (hand held) at 500mm...
Cheers,
Ron.

(Download)